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Published Thursday January 17, 2013 at 6:00 am

PHOTO/ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SNOW IN THE COUNTRY — A snow-covered barn is reflected in a pond after a fresh snowfall Wednesday in Chatham, N.Y.

FORT MEADE, Md. — The trial of an Army private charged with giving classified information to the WikiLeaks website may hinge on what he knew — or should have known — about the consequences of his alleged actions.

A military judge made a pretrial ruling Wednesday about what prosecutors must prove to convict Pfc. Bradley Manning of the most serious charge he faces. He’s accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of battlefield reports and State Department cables while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

The most serious charge is aiding the enemy. Col. Denise Lind ruled that for Manning to be convicted of that offense, prosecutors must prove he knew the material would be seen by al-Qaeda members.

CHICAGO — The Chicago Fire Department says three passengers have suffered head injuries as a result of turbulence on an American Eagle flight from New Orleans to Chicago.

On its official media Twitter feed, the Fire Department says it responded to a call after Flight 3720 landed at O’Hare International Airport on Wednesday. The department says it took one of the hurt passengers to a hospital; the two others did not want to go.

According to the flight tracking website FlightAware.com, the flight left New Orleans at 7:40 a.m. and landed at O’Hare at about 9:30 a.m. The website says the aircraft is a Bombardier CRJ-700, a regional jet.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian troops stepped up an offensive against rebels in the north on Wednesday, following explosions targeting security forces and a university campus that killed more than 100 people in two days.

Powerful suicide car bombs that killed about two dozen people in Idlib marked another escalation in the fight for control of northern Syria, a key battlefield in the country’s civil war. The day before, massive blasts heavily damaged the main university in the commercial hub of Aleppo, killing 87 people and wounding scores of others.

The nearly simultaneous bombings in Idlib Wednesday bore the trademarks of Islamic militants, the most organized rebel fighters trying to topple President Bashar Assad’s government.

NEW YORK — Tens of thousands of New York City children who usually ride school buses took subways, taxis and private cars to school Wednesday as more than 8,000 bus drivers and aides went on strike to keep their jobs.

“I love my job and I don’t want to be looking for another one,” said bus driver Robert Behrens, who manned a picket line in Queens.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said police were called after some strikers blocked gates to keep buses from leaving and warned, “We won’t permit that kind of reprehensible conduct.”

Union head Michael Cordiello said the drivers will strike until Bloomberg and the city agree to put a job security clause back into their contract.

“I came to urge the mayor to resolve this strike,” said Cordiello, president of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union. “It is within his power to do so.”

But Bloomberg said the strike “is about job guarantees that the union just can’t have.”

After the union announced a strike Monday, city officials said they would hand out transit passes to students.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — A Marine who admitted urinating on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan will likely be demoted one rank.

Staff Sgt. Edward W. Deptola pleaded guilty Wednesday to the desecration of remains and posing for unofficial photographs with human casualties, among other charges.

While a judge at his court-martial set a much harsher sentence, she is bound by the terms of a plea agreement the sergeant reached with prosecutors.

The judge would have sentenced him to six months confinement , a $5,000 fine, demotion to private and a bad-conduct discharge.

The video taken in July 2011 surfaced last year amid a string of embarrassing incidents for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.